Eddie Jones arrived in South Florida as an All-Star, the next wave, the hometown kid poised to lead the Heat out of a cycle of playoff misery.
He was thinking big. Pat Riley was thinking big. Expectations were substantial.

That was then.

Flash forward to this month, with Riley describing the "ideal" for this season's Heat as fielding four 15-point scorers, a load split evenly among Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Dwyane Wade and Jones.

"I don't think," the Heat coach says, "there's one guy where we're going to give the ball to this guy and he's going to become Tracy McGrady."

Four years into his Heat tenure, Eddie Jones has become what he seemingly most loathed being labeled, a complementary player. Perhaps even more significant is that the 6-foot-6 guard accepts the reality -- either as a more mature presence at 31, or a beaten-down one.

"I'm a steady player," he says, "I'm going to give you the same thing every night."